The Most In-Demand Security Jobs and How to Get Them

Threat Intelligence Analysts

These are the professionals who try to put the pieces of the security threat puzzle together. They not only understand how malware works within a system and how to combat it, but they also analyze how the threat was delivered into a system, said Delfine. “Threat intelligence analysts might work in conjunction with a malware reverse engineer to detect potential threats and its effect on a system, but they also look at how an organization treats data, what policies are in place to safeguard data, how suspicious phishing emails are treated, who within an organization has access to what information, how they respond to threats and inform employees about potential risks.”

Anywhere high-tech is used creates a demand for security technology professionals. “We need to make sure every door has a lock, so to speak,” said PK Agarwal, regional dean and CEO of Northeastern University-Silicon Valley and former CTO for California under Governor Schwarzenegger.

Security professionals are in demand right now. Entry-level security jobs, according to Corey Wilburn, security practice manager at DataEndure, fall into either an engineer or analyst role.

“An engineer role would be primarily accountable for the deployment, integration and maintenance of technology-based security controls,” Wilburn explained. “An analyst, on an incident response or security operations team, would handle the review of data feeds generated by technology-based security controls to track down potential malicious activity within an organization.”

Every career path needs a starting point, but these security jobs could take you down the road to a C-level position someday.